It started with surgery to repair the ulnar collateral ligament in his left thumb on April 30, a procedure that’s expected to keep him in a cast for six weeks. In addition, Johnson visited the dentist recently to begin the process of replacing his missing teeth.

Johnson will also see his salary jump from $5.9 million to $19.2 million this upcoming season as part of the four-year deal he signed with the Heat in the summer of 2016.

But on Tuesday, Johnson was one of two current Heat players — along with Rodney McGruder — at the end-of-year celebration for the Heat Academy students. During the festivities, Carnival Corporation & plc and Carnival Foundation presented a check in the amount of $170,000 to the Florida Prepaid College Foundation for scholarships benefiting Heat Academy students.

Johnson spoke to a few reporters on Tuesday afternoon at the Heat Academy event at AmericanAirlines Arena. He answered questions on his rehab process, his teeth and his impending pay raise.

Here’s what Johnson had to say …

Q: How’s your surgically-repaired left thumb healing?

Tyler: “Good. It’s going really good. I got a couple more weeks and I’ll be out the cast completely and just rehabbing. So, it’s going well.”

Q: How will it feel when you finally take the cast off?

Tyler: “Good. Right now, it’s a little bit of a special cast. So I can tighten it and untighten it, so it’s not as restrictive as what it would be like fully, fully wrapped up. That’s a plus, I guess.”

Q: Did you know you would need surgery on the thumb as soon as you injured it during Game 3 of the first-round series against the Sixers? You played the final two games of the series with the injury.

Tyler: ““I had found out after I did it, that night after the game. They had told me I was probably going to get it operated on. It was a matter of pain tolerance. If you can play with it, awesome and that’s a plus. If not, it’s understandable and we can operate it. But it really wasn’t super painful. It was just going to be something that was going to restrict some movement in my thumb and obviously it was going to have some sort of effect on basketball. I was able to play with it. We had a special tape job, so it didn’t move too much. So the pain was manageable.”

Q: Is it tough to watch the playoffs after being eliminated in the first round?

Tyler: “Yes and no. Obviously as a competitor, you want to be out there and you want to be playing and competing, especially when you see some of these teams that you feel like you could have matched up well with playing. But at the same time, looking at it from a different perspective. Actually making the playoffs this year and having a role on a playoff team kind of makes me and some of the other guys who haven’t really been in the playoffs look at the game a little bit different and look at the playoff atmosphere a little bit different when you’re watching other teams play.”

Q: You posted a video of yourself visiting the dentist after the season. Is the gap-tooth smile going to be a thing of the past soon?

Tyler: “So what it is that I had to get implants put in. This one [missing lower tooth] is already fake, so they gave me a tooth down here as a temporary. And then up here [missing upper tooth], they couldn’t do because [the tooth next to that one] is also fake. So they couldn’t put [two fake teeth] together. So in about two months, I’ll have a surprise for y’all.”

Q: So you’re going to have a full set of teeth next season?

Tyler: “By next year for sure, you’ll be amazed.”

Q: When you get back on the court, what will be the focus of your offseason work?

Tyler: “Really it’s continuing to develop that mental stability. The mental part of basketball. The physical part, I have a lot of tools that I haven’t even really tapped into yet because I haven’t known how to. It all starts with my mental stability and my mental understanding of the game. I think the physical aspect can, obviously, get better. You can always improve, and get bigger, stronger and faster. But I think aside from that, it’s all up here.”

Q: Does the fact that your salary jumps from $5.9 million to $19.2 million this upcoming season put added pressure on you?

Tyler: “It don’t bother me. It’s just a nicer paycheck when I go home. It’s no bother to me, though. I know for other people maybe on the outside looking in, it’s: ‘This guy is not worth what that is.’ But I would say, the Heat wouldn’t have matched that contract if they didn’t. It was all laid out from the get-go. So it’s not like a surprise. It’s not like salaries are unveiled every year. It’s been known what it was going to be. It’s not any added pressure to me. Maybe it is to everybody else who thinks I should be this or that.”

[…] in last year. $19.2 million for a backup point guard is a lot of money. Johnson was asked by Anthony Chiang of the Palm Beach Post if the extra money coming his way meant more pressure for him, and Johnson doesn’t think […]